


After the Sun Goes Down

by kkscatnip (autohaptic)



Series: Killing for Love [2]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Siblings, Childhood Trauma, Feels, Gen, talking is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autohaptic/pseuds/kkscatnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason's never been so afraid before, which is stupid. The right time to be afraid is when you're infiltrating a target organization or--or any of the tests Mom put them through. Not when you can't figure out what's going on in your sister's head. Not <i>after</i> you wake up from a nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Sun Goes Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arielchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arielchan/gifts).



> Because I said "tell me your ideas" and she did. ♥

It's twenty-six days after... _after_ , and Cass still hasn't said a word. Jason's not worried, not really. There had been a day, a couple of years before, when Jason and Cass went out on a training mission and brought home a half-starved puppy. 

Mom hadn’t let them tfeed it, much less keep it. She’d told them it and all other pets were nothing but a liability. Cass was so upset, she didn't speak for almost three months, and when she did, it was only after she and Jason made a routine of saving table scraps and feeding the growing puppy on the sly. 

So, Cass being quiet? Pretty usual for when she's upset. But this time he only knows some of what's going on inside his sister's head and that's really, really scary to him. Usually even if Jason doesn't know everything when it starts, he's figured most of it out after a week or so. Cass is predictable like that, or maybe it's just that Jason knows her better than anybody, even Mom.

This isn't predictable. This is frightening, as frightening as the nightmares they both started having when, after being awake for fifty-three hours, they finally collapsed into sleep in a relatively safe place. Jason woke up two hours later from Cass shaking him, one of her hands pressed firmly over his mouth.

He's never been so afraid before, which is stupid. The right time to be afraid is when you're infiltrating a target organization or--or any of the tests Mom put them through. Not when you can't figure out what's going on in your sister's head. Not _after_ you wake up from a nightmare.

But Jason is afraid, and it's starting to bleed into everything, so when he hears a scream, he takes off running toward it, and the first thing he sees is some short guy about as wide as a barn beating the snot out of a girl. 

She's maybe sixteen, though her (smeared) make-up makes her look older, and he's at least twice that, and when he starts punching her in the face Jason draws his knife without thinking. " _Hey_." 

The guy looks at him, the girl screams, and Cass says, "You can't take it back." 

They're her first words in twenty-six days, seven hours, and roughly fifteen minutes by his internal clock. He only has time for a glance--the idiot's headed for them, of course--but he puts everything he has into saying _Do you actually mean what I think you mean?_ with his expression.

Cass nods, and the guy screams as he tries to reach for Jason, who dodges easily. Cass darts in, under the guy's reach, almost pressed up against him. She executes a move that Jason's seen her do a thousand times in practice--that he's done a thousand times in practice--only she does it wrong.

No, not wrong: she intends to do what she does, which is truncate the move, make it from something that will undoubtedly crush his throat with the heel of her hand into something that merely makes him jump away, coughing. Not dead. 

The girl stares at them, wide-eyed, frozen. 

The guy is still out of commission: holding his throat, coughing and wheezing. Cass goes over and throws herself into an almost playful looking roundhouse kick to the back of his head--nowhere near what she's capable of, in terms of speed and strength--and he drops like a ton of bricks. 

He's not dead, but it's clear to everyone that if they'd wanted him dead, he would've been. 

And Jason wants to tell her that it's okay, that she'll be okay now as long as she gets the fuck out of dodge before he comes to, but they've only been in Istanbul for four days, after hitching a ride here on a train from China, and Turkish wasn't one of the languages that Mom wanted them to know. He can only speak in horrible pidgin: "You okay." He sheathes his knife, smiles at her. "We go now." 

She's starting to shake her head, like she's denying what she's seeing. Cass has already taken off; Jason follows her, and only looks back once. The girl's still standing right where she was, shaking her head.

Jason really hopes she'll get out of there before that bastard wakes up.

*

Four and a half blocks away, Jason is still behind Cass, but she's close enough to hear the ring of metal when he catches the railing on one of the few fire escapes in this part of town and goes up. It's spiral, and only lets out on the roof. Jason sits in approximately the middle; they'll have plenty of time to get away as long as they don't get cornered on both sides. They're skinny enough to slip through the bars ringing it, though, so it's not really an issue.

The only reason Jason's thinking about it is that he really, really doesn't want to think about what Cass said. 

Except, he already is: You can't take it back. 

Cass settles beside him, leaning her knees against Jason's, but not letting their upper bodies touch.

"Tell it to me so it makes sense," he says, softly. Because sometimes he really needs words, even though Cass rarely does. 

"Killing..." she trails off, looking out over the city. "You can never take back your actions, but...organs and bones mend. You can't heal the dead." 

Before he can stop himself, Jason says, "That's the point, isn't it?" It's why Mom taught them the things she did: so they could stop people, for whatever reason they needed stopping.

Though, he'd never thought that he'd have that sick feeling in his gut after. He blames it on looking at their sightless, staring, eyes but he knows it's also from how _easy_ it was, how little effort it took to touch-feel for the ribs and just slide his knife between them. 

And the blood, the sharp smell of it and the way his palms sweated, even as they ran away. He'd felt clammy all over, but it was worst there, and he'd accidentally wiped his fingers through the blood on his pants a couple times.

Cass looks at him as he thinks. She knows what it looks like when that's happening, and won't bother him. 

Still, he doesn't like feeling like this. He draws his knees up to his chest and lets them back down, tips his head back and looks at the spiral of the fire escape above him. "You can't tell me that the guy didn't deserve it. He was punching her in the _face."_

_Now Cass is pressing her lips together, giving Jason a _I know you're not actually that stupid_ look. She's really good at it._

_"Yeah, yeah," Jason grumbles, and sighs. "We don't know what the situation was. We didn't know anything except what we saw; we--no, I-- _I_ should've been quiet and assessed the situation better instead of pulling my knife." _

_Cass touches Jason on the knee, and leans her upper body against his._

_"Love you too," he says without shame, putting his arm around her. "I need to get used to like, reviewing options before I jump in, since it's not like we're gonna get everything handed to us anymore. But--you're supposed to be the one who asses. Who gives orders. I'm just...not good at it. Give me some time?" There's more to it than that, of course. There's always more to it. If it hadn't been a woman, if she hadn't screamed... But Cass knows all of that, and understands what Jason means._

_"I can...give orders," Cass says, in a tone as warm as Jason's love-you-too._

_Jason blinks. Why the fuck didn't he think of that? Proof that he's too stupid to be let out on his own, clearly. "Okay," he says, grinning. He's made to take orders from Cass; this is perfect._

_She leans against him, then turns and gives a half-hug, and her smile says _I forgive you_._

_There's nothing Jason can do but grin and hug her back just as tight as he can._

**Author's Note:**

> I decided I would populate my notes section with cute, inane, or funny things about the fic in question. Just go with it, man.  
> 1) The working title for this fic was "haaayyyy". No, really, exactly that. I'd written the first bit and stopped at Jason's "Hey", and Google required a title before it would let me share, and that _hey_ was all I could think of.   
>  2) This fic was actually not titled by iTunes! I knew what I wanted to call it after I got done with the first scene.  
> 3) arielchan, on the girl's POV: "Assholes happen all the time. Killer children? Who knows what those will do."


End file.
